On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Cavuto: Coast to Coast,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo commented on the PCE inflation report and stated that inflation has dropped and they expect it to continue to do so and that food companies need to pass cost savings to consumers.
Adeyemo said, [relevant remarks begin around 1:10] “So, it’s important to remember where we’re coming from in order to understand where we’re going. And if we were talking a year and a half ago, inflation would have been far higher, but because of the action the President’s taken and the Fed has taken, inflation has come down. Our expectation is that, over the course of the year, it will continue to come down. But we know that there’s more we need to do to reduce costs for the American people and it’s job number one for the President. That’s why he’s been focused on making sure that we reduce the cost of prescription drugs, when you look at what we’ve done with insulin, and he’s called on Congress to expand that by making sure that, for all Americans, they don’t have to pay more than $2,000 for prescription drugs a year going forward. There are a number of steps the President wants to take in terms of building additional housing to bring down the cost of housing and to help us expand the supply of things in the economy that will help us bring down costs for Americans, and that’s what we’re focused on today.”
Guest host Edward Lawrence then asked, “But that’s all for a small group of Americans, bringing costs down. Since President Biden came into office, food prices, for example, are up 21% and the average hourly wages are down 2.5%, that’s from January of 2021. So, now we’re seeing inflation go up again and GDP slowing. So, is this the start of stagflation?”
Adeyemo answered, “No. When you look at incomes, incomes are growing faster than inflation, and when you look at food costs, those have also stabilized. And what we know to be true is that input costs are coming down. So, one of the things the President’s called on companies to do is to pass those cost decrease[s]…to the American people.”
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